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Die Spanjaarde het die eerste langhoringbees na Amerika gebring in 1493. Afstammelinge van hierdie langhorings het die eerste veebevolking in Noord -Amerika gevorm. Sommige hiervan het in die natuur ontsnap. Die eerste Europese setlaars in Texas het koeie saamgebring. Hierdie koeie het gemeng met die Spaanse rasse wat reeds in Texas was, en het gou groot kuddes geword. Na raming was daar aan die einde van die Amerikaanse burgeroorlog ongeveer ses miljoen langhorings in Texas.
In die tweede helfte van die 19de eeu het cowboys longhorn van Texas na die spoorwegstede Abilene, Dodge City, Wichita en Newton geneem. Die veebedryf het uiteindelik na Kansas, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Colorado en Arizona versprei.
In 1867 het Joseph McCoy gereël om beeste van Abilene na die Union Stockyards in Chicago te verskuif. Langhorings, met hul lang bene en harde hoewe, was ideale spoorbeeste; hulle het selfs gewig gekry op pad na die mark.
Longhorn Cattle - Geskiedenis
Die Texas Longhorn is geheel en al deur die natuur in Noord -Amerika gevorm. Dit was afkomstig van voorouers wat byna 500 jaar gelede die eerste bees was wat hul voete op Amerikaanse grond gesit het, en dit het die eindproduk geword van "survival of the fittest". Die Texas Longhorn, gevorm deur 'n kombinasie van natuurlike seleksie en aanpassing aan die omgewing, is die enigste beesras in Amerika wat sonder hulp van die mens werklik by Amerika aangepas is. In sy boek The Longhorns stel J. Frank Dobie hierdie situasie goed: "As hulle geregistreer en gereguleer, beperk en deur die mens voorsien is, sou hulle nie gewees het wat hulle was nie."
Met die vernietiging van die buffel na die burgeroorlog, is die Longhorns ingehaas om die Great Plains te beset, 'n groot grasveld wat die buffel ontruim het. Veeboere het hul broeikuddes noordwaarts gebring om op die ryk weivelde van Wes -Nebraska, Wyoming, die Dakotas en Montana te hardloop. Die Groot Vlaktes het dus grootliks gevul met hierdie "beesburgers" uit die suidweste. En die Texas Longhorns het goed aangepas by hul groeiende wêreld. Hulle het hul historiese bloeitydperk bereik en oorheers die vleistoneel van Noord -Amerika, soos geen ander beesras sedertdien gedoen het nie. Die romantiese Longhorn -era het egter tot 'n einde gekom toe hul variëteit omhein en ondergeploeg is en ingevoerde beeste met vinnige ryp eienskappe ingebring is om beesvleiseienskappe te "verbeter". Intensiewe kruisteling het die ware tipiese Longhorn teen 1900 amper uitgewis.
Foto met vergunning van Dickinson Cattle Co. Inc. www.texaslonghorn.com |
Die langhoring verskyn nou op 'n ander belangrike nuwe roete. Maer, natuurlik vleis, wat meer voeding per kalorie bied, is in aanvraag, en die langhoring vul die rekening. Diegene wat langhoringbees geproe het, spreek dit sag en vol smaak.
Maar veranderinge in die Amerikaanse voedselketting vind nie oornag plaas nie. Dit verg elke dag 107 000 beeste om ons smaak vir beesvleis te voorsien, en langhorings tel slegs ongeveer 100 000. Alhoewel dit 'n rukkie sal duur voordat ons by supermarkte 'longhorn lean' kan vra, is die vooruitsig optimisties dat die unieke eienskappe daarvan sal help om ander rasse te versterk en sodoende die bedryf te laat herleef.
Eienskappe
Die mees skouspelagtig gekleurde van alle beeste, met skadu's en kombinasies wat so uiteenlopend is dat twee nie dieselfde is nie, hulle bereik maksimum gewig in agt of tien jaar en wissel van 800 tot 1500 pond. Alhoewel dit stadig is om te volwasse, is hul voortplantingstydperk twee keer so lank as dié van ander rasse. Die meeste langhoringkoeie en -bulle het horings van vier voet of minder. Volwasse bestuurders het egter 'n gemiddelde spanwydte van ses voet of meer en 'n 15-jarige se horingspan bereik tot nege voet.
Dit neem nie agt tot tien jaar voordat Texas Longhorns hul maksimum gewig bereik nie, en hulle is geensins traag om volwasse te word nie. Dit is bekend dat Texas Longhorn -verse swanger word terwyl hulle nog hul ma verpleeg en 'n lewende kalf sonder hulp produseer voordat hulle selfs 16 maande oud is. Dit is nie 'n stadige volwassenheid nie.
Foto met vergunning van Dickinson Cattle Co. Inc. www.texaslonghorn.com |
Texas Longhorn -beeste vreet 'n groter verskeidenheid grasse, plante en onkruide as die meeste ander beeste. Texas Longhorn -eienaars kan weidings gebruik wat minder kunsmis en onkruiddoders benodig as eienaars van ander beesrasse.
Die Texas Longhorn lewer 'n baie maer beesvleis (meer vleis minder vet per ons). Studies aan groot universiteite het getoon dat Texas Longhorn -beesvleis aansienlik laer in cholesterol is as ander rasse vleisbeeste. 'N Texas Longhorn's, wat op chemikalieë of aanvullings op die gras grootgemaak is, bevat minder cholesterol as 'n hoenderborsie sonder vel. Die eienaar van die Texas Longhorn kan goed voel as hy weet dat hy 'n hartgesonde produk vir verbruik produseer. Hulle vleis is baie lekker en 'n mooi helderrooi kleur.
Die Texas Longhorn is die lewende simbool van die Ou Weste.
Statistiek
- Maer vleis - Die ras produseer natuurlik minder vet en laer cholesterol vir die gesondheidsbewuste publiek van vandag.
- Lang lewe - Texas Longhorns broei tot in hul tienerjare. Meer lewende kalwers oor die jare beteken meer dollars.
- Blaai deur gebruik - Minder byvoeding is nodig omdat die beeste voordeel trek uit die beskikbare voer.
- Weerstand teen siektes/parasiete - 'n Natuurlike immuniteit wat deur die eeue ontwikkel is, beteken minder veeartsrekeninge en minder onderhoud vir vandag se koeie.
- Voortplantingsdoeltreffendheid - Groot bekkenopeninge en lae geboortegewigte lei tot lewende kalwers. Besige veehouers kan afskeid neem van slapelose nagte.
- Voelbaarheid - Longhorn -beeste is intelligent, maklik om te hanteer en te hanteer.
- Aanpasbaarheid - Die ras floreer in klimate van die warm, klam kusstreke tot die harde winters van Kanada.
- Hybrid Vigor - Oorerflike kwaliteit verbeter u huidige ras en gee u 'n nuwe genetiese poel.
- Geen twee Texas Longhorns is dieselfde nie. Hulle verskil almal in kleurpatroon, grootte, horinglengte en persoonlikheid.
- Tradisie en nostalgie - Die Texas Longhorn is die lewende simbool van die Ou Weste. Waar die westelike invloed ook al gewen word-voor weiding, veebedryf of toeriste-aantreklikheid-daar is 'n vraag na hierdie wonderlike ras.
- Horings and Hide - Die Texas Longhorn is geld werd, selfs nadat dit sy nut as 'n vleisbeesprodusent oorleef het. Die hoogste dollar word betaal vir die horings, skedels en houers wat in die gewilde Suidwes -dekor van besighede en huise gebruik word.
- Pure Pleasure - Die Texas Longhorn is intelligent en maklik om mee te werk, en word maklik opgelei om in die skouring uit te stal, parades te lei of te ry, waens te trek, en ja, selfs om te ry!
Verspreiding
Texas Longhorns word redelik gewild en word hoofsaaklik versprei oor Amerika en Kanada, hoewel sommige Texas Longhorn -uitvoere vorder.
Verwysings (bogenoemde inligting is van die volgende webwerwe aangehaal)
Hulle is terug! 'N Geskiedenis van Texas Longhorn -beeste
Spaanse ontdekkingsreisigers kry die eer om die eerste beeste met lang horings na die nuwe wêreld te bring. Columbus het hulle in 1493 na Santo Domingo gebring. 'N Paar jaar later het Cortez Longhorn -beeste op sy erf in Mexiko gehou en die groot landgoed Cuerno Vaca' Horn Cow 'genoem.
In 1540 neem Coronado 'n omslagtige aantal skape, bokke, varke en minstens 500 koppe Spaanse beeste as voedsel vir sy ekspedisie om die sewe stede van Cibola te vind. Sommige van die Longhorns is langs die pad laat vaar, laat los en vyf-en-twintig jaar later was dit duisende, beskikbaar vir almal wat dit kon vang.
Ander rasse het die lang seereis na Noord -Amerika onderneem, maar sou hul nuwe omgewing nie oorleef nie. Uiteindelik het Britse koloniste in die vroeë 1600's in Virginia daarin geslaag om 'n ras Engelse beeste te onderhou wat later as inheemse Amerikaanse beeste bekend sou staan. Maar dit sou Spaanse diere uit die Andalusiese gebergte van Suidwes -Spanje wees wat uiteindelik die geskiedenis van die Noord -Amerikaanse vasteland sou beïnvloed en die hoeksteen sou word van Amerika se legendariese beeste, die Texas Longhorn.
Teen 1783 is 1,400,000 huide alleen vanaf Buenos Aires na Europa gestuur. Dit is bekend dat sommige Mexikaanse boere tot 30 000 kalwers per jaar merk. Hierdie Spaanse beesras van die nuwe wêreld het bekend gestaan as Criollo, oftewel "beeste van die land".
Gedurende die volgende 300 jaar is die Criollo, voorouers van die Texas Longhorn gekoop, verkoop, gesteel en daaroor baklei. Sommige is selektief geteel, terwyl terselfdertyd duisende baie goed op hul eie oorleef het. In die 1800's was Longhorn -beeste volop oor die westelike kant van Amerika. Deur die groeiende bevolking van goudsoekers te voed, het die prys van Longhorn -beesvleis van $ 1,50 tot $ 30,00 per kop in die omgewing van San Francisco gestyg. 1 000 koppe Longhorn -beeste is in 1876 na die suide van Alberta, Kanada, geneem, wat in die volgende 8 jaar tot byna 40 000 koppe vermeerder het.
Longhorn -beeste het deur koue weer, oorstromings en droogtes, Indiese strooptogte, die burgeroorlog en moeilike omstandighede gekom waardeur geen ander bees kon oorleef nie. Die meeste het vrygeloop en niemand hoef vir hulle omgee nie. Die Longhorn, wat sterk, hartlik en ongedeerd was deur baie van die siektes wat ander rasse aantas, het toe soos nou staatgemaak op intuïtiewe listigheid, uithouvermoë, sterkte en hul lang horings om hulself en hul kleintjies te beskerm.
Of dit nou deur boere grootgemaak is of uit die natuur afgerond is, Longhorns is uiteindelik noordwaarts geneem in fenomenale beesritte. Volgens die geskiedenis en die huidige owerhede was dit die Longhorn wat verantwoordelik was vir die opening van die veemark in Dodge City, Kansas. Kopers van New York tot Wyoming het vroeg opgedaag net om te kyk hoe die manjifieke beeste met lang horings die vee inry.
Die fassinasie van skrywer J. Frank Dobie met die Longhorn het gelei tot intense navorsing oor die onderwerp en daarna 'n uitstekende boek, The Longhorns, wat die geskiedenis van hierdie besonderse beesras beskryf. Dobie skryf: 'Na 1888 het die noordelike stroom Longhorns 'n dribbel geword. Teen 1895 was die paadjies uit Texas almal omhein of onder geploeg. Daar was tussen 1866 en 1890 tien miljoen beeste, het die gesag geraam.
Teen die 1920's het Longhorn -beeste 'n seldsame gesig geword. Ses boerderygesinne het suiwer Texas Longhorn -voorraad bewaar en geteel. Hulle was die families Wright, Yates, Butler, Marks, Peeler en Phillips. Elkeen het jare lank die voorraad heeltemal verwant aan die ander kuddes. Hulle pogings wat beplan of andersins was die belangrikste faktor wat die ras verhinder het om uit te sterf. In 1927, om hul bewaring te verseker, is 'n regeringskudde by die Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Cache, Oklahoma, gestig. Alle hedendaagse Longhorn -telers bring direkte afstammelinge van diere bymekaar wat deur hierdie sewe entiteite versamel en beskerm word.
Maar selfs in die middel van die twintigste eeu was die toestand van Longhorn-beeste benarde. Die 1959 -uitgawe van Encyclopedia Britannica lui: '. Longhorn -beeste was eens talle in die westelike streke van die Verenigde State. wat deur Spanjaarde na Amerika gebring is, is nou feitlik uitgesterf. '
Vir meer as 500 jaar het Longhorn -beeste belangrike bydraes gelewer tot die geskiedenis van hierdie kontinent: voer ontdekkingsreisigers, pioniers, Indiërs en leërs. As 'n lasdier het hulle meer konestogas weswaarts getrek as enige ras. Hulle het geskiedkundige rykdom, gesondheid en nou 'n moderne bedryf geskep wat weer floreer. Nadat die bedreiging van uitwissing oorleef het, neem Longhorn -beeste weer toe in getalle, gewildheid en winsgewendheid. Longhorn -beesvleis, wat bekend is vir hul natuurlik maer vleis, is gesog vanweë sy gesonde eienskappe. Kleurvolle huide en langhoringskedels het gewild en waardevolle dekoratiewe items geword. Rystuur en trofee -diere trek aandag vanweë hul sagmoedigheid, kleurvolle jasse en enorme horings.
In 2007, by die gesogte Texas Longhorn Legacy Sale, kies koeie met meer as 70 cm horingpunt tot punt, met meer as $ 2.000.000 in 113 premie -lotte. Toe die hamer op die dier met die hoogste verkoop kom, was die finale bod $ 82,000. In 2006 het een koei verkoop vir 'n rekord van $ 100,000. Sy beklee die eer slegs 'n paar minute voordat sy oortref is deur 'n koei wat vir $ 150,000 verkoop het.
Iewers mettertyd is die naam Texas Longhorn gebruik om hierdie unieke Spaanse beeste te beskryf en dit het hul amptelike naam geword. Regoor die Amerikas, Kanada, Mexiko en dele van Europa word Texas Longhorn -beeste geteel en grootgemaak. Boere is gretig om die erfenis, kwaliteit maer beesvleis en die nalatenskap van hierdie ongelooflike dier te behou.
Om hierdie geskiedenisles af te handel, lyk dit gepas om Dobie weer aan te haal. In sy inleiding tot The Longhorns sê hy: 'The Texas Longhorn het meer geskiedenis gemaak as enige ander beesras wat die beskaafde wêreld ken. . hy sal die grondslag bly waarop die geskiedenis van die koeiland Amerika gebaseer is. '
Longhorn Cattle - Geskiedenis
& kopieer David M. Hillis, Double Helix Ranch
Professor in Integratiewe Biologie
Universiteit van Texas in Austin
L Brilliant Mary ('n Texas Longhorn -koei) met 'n pasgebore kalf
Ek het 'n paar van die vrae wat ek gereeld oor Texas Longhorn -beeste gevra word, hier gelys, saam met my antwoorde. As u vraag oor Texas Longhorn-beeste nie hier beantwoord word nie, stuur 'n e-pos aan my, dan antwoord ek u self of vind iemand wat kan.
U kan ook op my skakelbladsy soek na skakels na ander webwerwe oor Texas Longhorns, asook na webwerwe vir ander Texas Longhorn -boerderye en beeswebwerwe.
Wat is die oorsprong van Texas Longhorns?
Anders as die meeste beesrasse, was niemand van plan om Texas Longhorn -beeste as 'n ras te ontwikkel nie. In plaas daarvan het hulle in Noord -Amerika ontwikkel van afstammelinge van beeste wat aan die einde van die 1400's en vroeë 1500's deur die Spaanse na die Amerikas gebring is (die eerste beeste is in 1493 in Hispaniola ingebring). Die beeste kom egter nie direk van die Spaanse vee af nie. Die eerste beeste wat deur die vroeë Spaanse ontdekkingsreisigers ingevoer is, was eerder van die Kanariese Eilande. Hierdie beeste is op hul beurt uit Portugal ingevoer, en die naaste familielede van Texas Longhorns onder bestaande Europese rasse is Portugese beesrasse (soos die Alentejana en Mertolenga). Hierdie vroeë invoer van Iberiese beeste vanaf die Kanariese Eilande het gou woes geword in die noorde van Mexiko (wat lande insluit wat die Republiek van Texas in 1836 geword het en 'n deel van die Verenigde State in 1845). Hierdie wilde kuddes het 'n intense natuurlike seleksie ondergaan; die enigste beeste wat kon oorleef, was hoogs siektebestand, kon onder moeilike toestande leef (deur droogtes, vloede, hitte en koue) en kon hulself en hul kalwers teen roofdiere verdedig.
In die vroeë 1800's is wilde langhoringsbeeste in 'n groot deel van Texas aangetref. Tydens die California Gold Rush van die laat 1840's en vroeë 1850's was daar 'n groot aanvraag na beeste in Kalifornië, en daar is tienduisende begin om beeste uit Texas te jaag om aan die vraag te voldoen. Hierdie praktyk is onderbreek deur die Amerikaanse burgeroorlog, sowel as die einde van die goudstormloop in Kalifornië. Texans wat na die Burgeroorlog na Texas teruggekeer het, het min inkomstebronne gehad, maar daar was baie wilde beeste in Texas, en daar was min beeste in die ooste van die Verenigde State. Texans het die beeste begin rondry en hulle na die spoorkoppe in Kansas gestuur, waar hulle na die ooskusstede gestuur is om 'n groeiende vraag na beesvleis te bevredig. Baie bekende beespaadjies is gevestig, soos die Chisholm-roete en die Goodnight-Loving-roete, en miljoene beeste (destyds 'quotasbeeste' genoem) is op hierdie paaie gery om na die ooste te vervoer.
Gedurende die laat 1800's het groot plase in Texas begin vestig. Omheinings is gebou, beeste is gevang en opgesluit, en die dae van vrylopende beeste het tot 'n einde gekom. Alhoewel hierdie boerderye oorspronklik Texas Longhorns gehou het, het hulle die meeste gou oorgegaan tot die invoer en verbetering van Europese beesrasse. Die Europese rasse het baie meer vet geproduseer as Texas Longhorns, en talg was destyds die primêre dryfveer vir veepryse. Verskeie boere het egter kuddes van die oorspronklike Texas -beeste gehou, hetsy vir nostalgie of omdat hulle die vermoëns en kwaliteite van hierdie beeste waardeer het. Teen die twintigerjare was die langhoringsbeeste skaars genoeg dat die Amerikaanse regering betaal het om 'n trop Texas -beeste by die Wichita Wildlife Refuge in die suidweste van Oklahoma bymekaar te maak om dit te beskerm teen uitwissing. Ongeveer 'n halfdosyn privaat kuddes is ook gedurende die eerste helfte van die 1900's onderhou (of begin), en die meeste moderne Texas Longhorns kan teruggevoer word na hierdie sewe 'families' van langhorings (die Wichita Refuge, Butler, Marks, Peeler) , Phillips, Wright en Yates -reëls).
In 1964 is die Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America (TLBAA) gestig, en 'n registrasieproses is ingestel. So het Texas Longhorns 'n geregistreerde ras geword. Vandag word Texas Longhorns geteel en gewaardeer vir baie verskillende redes. Hulle natuurlik maer vleis word nou as 'n voordeel beskou, en die vermoë van Texas Longhorns om te floreer onder natuurlike toestande (sonder die gebruik van antibiotika, bygevoegde hormone of die gebruik van voerkrale) maak dit 'n gunsteling vir die maer beesvleis, gevoer in die reeks markte vir beesvleis en organiese beesvleis. Hulle word ook wyd grootgemaak vir hul pragtige kleure en horings, en deur mense wat die geskiedenis en kwaliteite van die ras waardeer. Texas Longhorn -bulle word dikwels as diensdiere vir ander beesrasse gebruik, omdat die kruise minder geboorteprobleme veroorsaak en kalwers wat vinnig groei en min gesondheidsprobleme het. Op die Double Helix Ranch was ons aangetrokke tot Texas Longhorns vanweë hul hoë genetiese diversiteit en gepaardgaande hoë fiksheid, benewens hul historiese belangstelling en hul skoonheid. Eienskappe wat in Texas Longhorns opval, is hul natuurlike siekteweerstand, groot lewensduur, hoë voortplantingsnelheid, gemaklike geboorte, die vermoë om te floreer onder moeilike toestande en die vermoë om hulself te verdedig teen roofdiere. Ons het nog nooit 'n enkele Texas Longhorn -kalf aan siektes of predasie verloor nie, en hulle floreer sonder uitgebreide sorg of byvoeding.
Vir meer gedetailleerde inligting oor die geskiedenis van Texas Longhorn -beeste, beveel ek TJ Barragy se uitstekende boek, Gathering Texas Gold, aan benewens J. Frank Dobie se klassieke boek, The Longhorns. Sien ook Alan Hoyt se reeks van elf dele oor die geskiedenis van die Texas Longhorns (oorspronklik gepubliseer in die Texas Longhorn Journal).
Is dit moeilik om Texas Longhorns te beheer, en kan dit gevaarlik wees?
Die meeste moderne Texas Longhorns is sagte beeste en is een van die maklikste rasse om te hanteer en te beheer. Hulle sagte geaardheid en opvallende voorkoms maak hulle gunstelinge as ruiters, en hul algemene gesondheid en aanpasbaarheid maak hulle ideaal vir boere in die naweek. Texas Longhorns wat gereeld met mense omgaan, is maklik om te hanteer, soos met enige ras, maar beeste wat selde mense sien, kan wild en versigtig groei.
Natuurlik is versigtigheid onder Texas Longhorns nodig as gevolg van die lang horings. Alhoewel ons beeste nog nooit 'n mens doelbewus aangeval of benadeel het nie, kan en kan hulle hul horings gebruik om voorwerpe te manipuleer en om hul liggame te krap, maar daarom moet redelike sorg aan die dag gelê word om die toevallige aanraking met die horings te vermy. Texas Longhorns sal hul kalwers ook teen honde verdedig, daarom is ons versigtig om ons honde op 'n veilige afstand van die kudde te hou.
Watter soort heinings het ek nodig om Texas Longhorns te hou?
Enige heining wat ander beesrasse bevat, is voldoende vir Texas Longhorns. Ons verkies om doringdraadheinings te gebruik, want dit is die betroubaarste vir ons en die onderhoudskoste is laag. Baie telers gebruik egter eenvoudige een- of tweestrengs elektriese heinings met groot sukses, en plank-, pyp- en gaasheinings is natuurlik meer as voldoende. Ons vermy elektriese heinings, want dit kan moeilik wees om oor lang afstande te onderhou en omdat dit onderhewig is aan aardingsprobleme (gewoonlik veroorsaak deur hertekruising) en verlies van weerligstrale in ons deel van die land. As dit egter noukeurig gemonitor en onderhou kan word, is elektriese heinings effektief om Texas Longhorns te beheer. As u heinings het wat ander beeste of vee binne of buite u eiendom hou, moet dit voldoende wees om die meeste Texas Longhorns te bevat.
Soos met enige beesras, sal 'n paar individuele bulle nie heinings respekteer nie, en hulle sal óf spring óf deur hulle gaan. Ons het egter meer moeite gehad om die bulle (van ander rasse) van ons bure uit ons weivelde te hou as om ons Texas Longhorn -bulle in te hou. Ons het eens 'n bul gehad wat 'n omheining was, en daarom het ons hom van kant gemaak. Ons kies nou bulle gedeeltelik vir hul geaardheid, en ons het selde probleme daarmee dat ons bulle ons heinings oorsteek.
Vereis Texas Longhorns baie veeartsenykundige sorg?
Nee. Texas Longhorns het minimale gesondheidsprobleme. U moet die standaard inentingsprogram vir beeste in u deel van die land volg, met redelike goeie weiding of hooi, voldoende minerale soos benodig vir u omgewing, en 'n bron van skoon drinkwater, en 'n gereelde program vir parasietbeheer volg soos aanbeveel deur u veearts . As die hooi- of weidingsgehalte swak is, moet u hul dieet op 'n seisoenale basis aanvul. As Longhorns voldoende voeding kry (insluitend minerale) en ingeënt is soos deur u veearts aanbeveel, is gesondheidsprobleme redelik skaars.
Het Texas Longhorns baie geboorteprobleme?
Nee. Ons het nog nooit probleme met die geboorte van 'n Texas Longhorn -kalf gehad nie, en geboorteprobleme bestaan feitlik nie in die ras nie. Dit is een van die redes waarom baie kommersiële veehouers Texas Longhorn -bulle as diensdiere gebruik by koeie van baie Europese rasse. Die gevolglike kalwers word sonder probleme gebore, en kruisbeeste tel gewoonlik baie vinnig op.
Wat is die markte vir Texas Longhorns?
1. Teelvoorraad (privaat verdragverkope en toegewyde veilings)
2. Bulle vir diensvaders
3. Stuur vir ry en westerse nostalgie
4. Voorraad vir rodeo's (ropers)
5. Beeste vir organiese vleis, maer beesvleis en beesvleisverkope (soos toepaslik vir die individuele teelprogram)
6. Beeste vir die hoofvleisbeesmark (maklik om te verkoop by plaaslike verkoopskure, maar gewoonlik die laagste prys)
Hoe vinnig groei die horings van Texas Longhorns? Hoe groei hulle?
In 'n artikel gepubliseer in Texas Longhorn Journal in Desember 1999 stel Malcolm Goodman voor dat Texas Longhorn-bulle ongeveer 50% van hul uiteindelike punt-tot-punt-horingmeting op ongeveer een jaar oud (gemiddeld) bereik. Teen vierjarige ouderdom het hulle ongeveer 95% van hul maksimum lengte bereik. Die horings van die gemiddelde Texas Longhorn-koei bereik 'n bietjie later, ongeveer 15 maande oud, 50% van hul uiteindelike meting van punt tot punt, en bereik 95% tussen vyf en ses jaar oud. Hulle groei steeds, maar vertraag gewoonlik met ouderdom aansienlik. Dit is natuurlik net gemiddeldes, en daar is groot variasie, afhangende van die vorm van die horings. Die horings van stuurbakke groei lewenslank teen 'n redelike tempo, omdat die lae testosteroonvlakke in stuurstene toelaat dat die groeiplaat van die innerlike beenkern onbeperk bly.
Horings groei uit die basis, nie die punte nie, en & quotgroei ringe & quot kan naby die basis van die horings van ouer koeie gesien word. Koeie produseer 'n nuwe ring in samewerking met elke kalf wat hulle produseer, alhoewel hierdie groeiringe by ouer diere redelik naby mekaar kan kom. Horings bestaan uit 'n benige kern, omring deur vlees en bloed, en dan 'n buitenste laag keratien. By baie diere (veral diere met helderkleurige, vinnig groeiende horings) kan 'n mens die rooierige kleur van die bloedtoevoer onder die keratienlaag sien, veral naby die groeiende basis.
Wat is die wydste horings van koeie, bulle en stiere in Texas Longhorn op rekord?
Dit is 'n moeilike vraag om te beantwoord, want oor die jare is baie bewerings gemaak wat moeilik is om te verifieer. Daarbenewens is daar ten minste twee algemene maniere om horings te meet. Die punt-tot-punt-meting is die maklikste om weer te gee: dit is eenvoudig die reguitlynmaat van die een horingpunt na die ander. Die & quottotal horing & quot of poll meting poog om die horings langs hul kromme te meet, om 'n maatstaf te kry van die totale lengte van die horings. Hierdie meting is baie moeiliker om akkuraat te herhaal, maar dit is 'n beter weerspieëling van die totale horinglengte. Die punt-tot-punt-meting ken langer waardes toe aan reguit, laterale horings as aan opwaarts geboë horings van dieselfde totale lengte.
Gegewe die probleme om metings deur verskillende mense te vergelyk, is die beste antwoord wat ek op hierdie vraag kan gee om te wys op die jaarlikse Horn Showcase -kompetisie wat deur die Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America gehou word. Hierdie kompetisie sluit natuurlik nie al die lewende Texas Longhorns in nie, maar eienaars van die diere met die langste horings is geneig om baie trots op hul beeste te wees, en dus is die wenners ten minste een van die langhorings in Texas Longhorns. Alhoewel daar 'n paar staaltjies is van selfs meer horings in die verre verlede, beteken onlangse seleksie van baie lang horings dat die Texas Longhorns wat vandag leef, waarskynlik een van die langhoringdiere is wat nog ooit deel van die ras was.
By die horingvenster van 2006:
1. Die Texas Longhorn-koei met die breedste horings (tip-to-tip meting) was Day's Feisty Fannie, op 82 & quot
2. Die Texas Longhorn -koei met die breedste horings (totale horingmeting) was Sunrise Hope, op 97 3/8 & quot
3. Die Texas Longhorn-bul met die breedste horings (tip-to-tip meting) was Superbowl, op 76 & quot
4. Die Texas Longhorn -bul met die breedste horings (totale horingmeting) was Wyoming Warpaint, op 96 1/4 & quot
5. Die Texas Longhorn-stuurwiel met die breedste horings (meting van punt tot punt) was Watson 101, op 101 & quot
6. Die Texas Longhorn stuur met die breedste horings (totale horingmeting) was Gilbralter op 126 1/2 "
Wat is die handelsmerkvereistes vir geregistreerde Texas Longhorns?
Geregistreerde Texas Longhorns moet gebrandmerk word met 'n houermerk (die handelsmerk van die individuele boerdery of eienaar) sowel as 'n unieke privaat kuddenommer. Brandmerk kan gedoen word met vuurmerke of vriesmerke. Merkontwerpe moet by beide die rasvereniging en u staat, graafskap of provinsie van u woonplek geregistreer wees (volgens die plaaslike handelsregistrasieregulasies). In Texas moet veehandelsmerke geregistreer word in elke land waar 'n plaas bedryf word. Registrasie word by die County Courthouse gedoen (en een keer per dekade hernu).
Waar kan Texas Longhorns grootgemaak word? Benodig hulle 'n warm, droë klimaat?
Texas Longhorns word grootgemaak in Noord -Amerika, sowel as in 'n paar Europese lande en in Australië. Hulle floreer in beide warm en koue klimate, en alles tussenin. Daar is uiters suksesvolle Texas Longhorn -telers regoor Noord -Amerika, op elke plek waar beeste grootgemaak word. Hulle floreer waar ander rasse sukkel om te lewe, maar hulle benodig nie 'n warm, droë klimaat nie. Hulle floreer ook in Kanada, in die noordweste van die Stille Oseaan, op die noordelike vlaktes, in die noordooste en in die suidoostelike state.
Wat eet Texas Longhorns?
Soos alle beeste, eet Texas Longhorns meestal gras en biefstukke. Texas Longhorns wei egter (en blaai) op 'n groter verskeidenheid plante as die meeste beeste. Deur 'n groter verskeidenheid plante te gebruik, doen hulle minder skade aan die veld (aangesien hulle nie net op 'n paar gunsteling spesies teiken nie), en hulle kan gedy onder 'n groter verskeidenheid toestande.
Kan Texas Longhorns veilig by perde gehou word?
Ons hou ons perde in 'n weiding by Texas Longhorns, net soos baie ander telers, en het geen probleme ondervind nie. Dit word dikwels aanbeveel om beeste en perde saam te wei om die kwaliteit van die weiding te handhaaf en parasietvragte van beide beeste en perde te verminder (aangesien die inwendige parasiete van beeste nie by perde kan oorleef nie, en omgekeerd).
Dekodering van die genetiese geskiedenis van die Texas longhorn
Texas Longhorn -beeste het 'n baster wêreldwye afkoms, volgens 'n studie deur navorsers van die Universiteit van Texas in Austin wat hierdie week in die Verrigtinge van die National Academy of Sciences.
Die studie van die genoom van die Longhorn en verwante rasse vertel 'n fassinerende wêreldgeskiedenis van migrasie van mense en beeste. Dit spoor terug deur Christopher Columbus se tweede reis na die Nuwe Wêreld, die Moorse inval in Spanje en die ou makmaak van die aurochs in die Midde -Ooste en Indië.
"Dit is 'n regte Texas -verhaal, 'n Amerikaanse verhaal," het Emily Jane McTavish, 'n doktorale student in die laboratorium van biologie -professor David Hillis, gesê. 'Mense het lank gedink dat hierdie Nuwe Wêreld -beeste van 'n suiwer Europese afkoms afkomstig is. Maar dit blyk dat hulle 'n meer komplekse, meer hibriede, meer globale afkoms het, en daar is bewyse dat hierdie genetiese diversiteit deels verantwoordelik is vir hul groter veerkragtigheid teen moeilike klimaatstoestande.
Om die genetiese geskiedenis van Texas Longhorns te rekonstrueer, het McTavish, Hillis en kollegas van die Universiteit van Missouri-Columbia byna 50 000 genetiese merkers van 58 beesrasse ontleed. Die mees omvattende analise tot dusver, is gedeeltelik befonds deur die Cattlemen's Texas Longhorn Conservancy, wat die wetenskaplikes gehelp het om toegang te verkry tot monsters wat deur boere gebruik word.
Onder die bevindinge was dat die Texas Longhorn -ras direkte afstammelinge is van die eerste beeste in die Nuwe Wêreld. Die voorvaderlike beeste is in 1493 deur Columbus na die eiland Hispaniola gebring. Hulle het die res van die pad na die vasteland gereis in 1521 op die skepe van latere Spaanse koloniste.
Gedurende die volgende twee eeue het die Spaanse die beeste noordwaarts getrek en in die gebied aangekom wat naby die einde van die 17de eeu Texas sou word. Die beeste het ontsnap of is op die oop gebied losgemaak, waar hulle die volgende twee eeue meestal wild gebly het.
“It was known on some level that Longhorns are descendants from cattle brought over by early Spanish settlers,” said Hillis, the Alfred W. Roark Centennial Professor in the College of Natural Sciences, “but they look so different from the cattle you see in Spain and Portugal today. So there was speculation that there had been interbreeding with later imports from Europe. But their genetic signature is co mpletely consistent with being direct descendants of the cattle Columbus brought over.”
The study reveals that being a “pure” descendant of cattle from the Iberian peninsula indicates a more complicated ancestry than was understood. Approximately 85 percent of the Longhorn genome is “taurine,” descended from the ancient domestication of the wild aurochs that occurred in the Middle East 8,000-10,000 years ago. As a result, Longhorns look similar to purer taurine breeds such as Holstein, Hereford and Angus, which came to Europe from the Middle East.
The other 15 percent of the genome is “indicine,” from the other ancient domestication of the aurochs, in India. These indicine cattle, which often have a characteristic hump at the back of the neck, spread into Africa and from there up to the Iberian peninsula.
“It’s consistent with the Moorish invasions from the 8th to the 13th centuries,” said Hillis. “The Moors brought cattle with them, and brought these African genes, and of course the European cattle were there as well. All those influences come together in the cattle of the Iberian peninsula, which were used to stock the Canary Islands, which is where Columbus stopped and picked up cattle on his second voyage and brought them to the New World.”
Once in the New World, most of the cattle eventually went feral. Under the pressures of natural selection they were able to re-evolve ancient survival traits that had been artificially bred out of their European ancestors. Selection for longer horns allowed them to defend against wild predators. They became leaner and more able to survive heat and drought.
“The Longhorns that were in the area when Anglo settlers arrived almost looked more like the ancestral aurochsen than like modern cattle breeds,” said McTavish. “Living wild on the range, they had to become very self sufficient. Having that genetic reservoir from those wild ancestors made it possible for a lot of those traits to be selected for once again.”
McTavish said it’s possible the indicine heritage in particular helped, because the climate in India and Africa tended to be hotter and drier than in Europe.
The Longhorns remained wild on the range, or very loosely managed, until after the Civil War, when Texans rounded up the wild herds and began supplying beef to the rest of the country. Since then the fortunes of the Longhorns have waxed and waned depending on how their unique genetic profile intersects with the changing needs of American consumers.
“The Longhorns almost went extinct starting in the late 19th century,” said Hillis. “A lot of the value of cattle at that time had to do with the fat they had, because the primary lighting source people had was candles, made of tallow, and Texas Longhorns have very low fat content. Ranchers began fencing off the range and importing breeds from Europe that had higher fat content. That’s when Americans began developing their taste for fatty beef, so then the other cattle became valuable in that respect as well. The only reason the Longhorns didn’t go extinct was because half a dozen or so ranchers kept herds going even though they knew that these other breeds were more valuable in some sense. They appreciated that the Longhorns were hardier, more self-sufficient.”
Hillis, who raises Longhorns of his own out at the Double Helix Ranch, said that the winds of history now seem to be blowing in the Longhorns’ direction. They can survive in hotter, drier climates, which will become increasingly important as the world warms. They provide lean and grass-fed beef, which is seen as healthier by many consumers. And their genes may prove valuable to ranchers, who can use the increasingly sophisticated genetic information to selectively breed the Longhorns’ toughness into other breeds of cattle.
“It’s another chapter in the story of a breed that is part of the history of Texas,” he said.
TEXAS LONGHORN CATTLE BREED OF CATTLE QUICK PROFILE OVERVIEW
CATTLE ⇒ | COW | BULL |
Breed Color: | Speckled hides of various colors but most commonly a golden brown | Speckled hides of various colors but most commonly a golden brown |
Breed Weight: | 272 to 545 kgs | 272 to 545 kgs |
Breed Height: | Unclear | Unclear |
Horns: | Long lyre-shaped horns | Long lyre-shaped horns |
Temperament: | Docile, active and intelligent | Docile, active and intelligent. All bulls should be handled with extreme care and caution. |
Matures at age: | 6 to 8 months or 9 + months | 6 to 8 months or 9 + months |
Puberty Age: | 6 to 15 months | 9 to 1o months |
Breeding Age: | 13 to 15 months | 1 jaar |
Breeding Traits: | See Cow breeding & Milking Info | Cover 25 to 30 Cows in 1 season |
The Wild History of the Texas Longhorn
What a difference a century makes. Today Texas longhorns are celebrated as living flags, rugged icons of the American Southwest. But a little more than 100 years ago, the big beasts had an image problem.
During the era of open ranges and extended cattle drives, longhorns thrived. Yet as industrialization took hold, they fell out of favor. With extinction looming, the breed was saved at the eleventh hour by organized conservation efforts — and a burst of Old West nostalgia.
Colonial Cattle
A 2013 genetic analysis found that Texas longhorns are descended from ancient lineages of both Middle Eastern and Indian cattle. Those two groups eventually came into contact in north Africa, resulting in hybrids who made their way to southwestern Europe.
Enter Christopher Columbus. On his transatlantic journey in 1493, the explorer took along several mixed-lineage bulls and cows acquired from the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco. With these animals, Columbus introduced domestic bovines to the Caribbean — and by extension, the New World.
Other Spanish travelers arrived in the region with cattle from the same general stock. In 1521, the beasts spread into mainland Mexico. And as Spaniards colonized present-day Colombia, Venezuela and Texas, their livestock tagged along.
It didn't take long for Texan cattle to start going native. The San Francisco de los Tejas Mission established one of the area's first domestic herds in 1690. By 1710, what we now know as eastern Texas — where the mission resided — was teeming with feral cattle.
Survival of the Fittest
Wild cows and bulls in those days would've faced many of the same challenges as their ranch-reared counterparts. The area that is now Texas was full of predators, droughts were common and some native plants were poor in nutrients. Natural selection favored long-horned animals (of both sexes) because they had an easier time fending off wolves and coyotes. Likewise, lean cattle with a tolerance for extreme temperatures were more likely to survive in this harsh environment.
Early in the 19th century, a fresh wave of immigrants diversified the gene pool. At the invitation of Spain and Mexico, thousands of Anglo-American settlers came to the area. The transplants were accompanied by herds of cattle descended from northern European breeds.
As these bovine latecomers mingled with the wilderness-hardened natives, an all-new breed emerged. Originally called the "Spanish cattle," "mustang cattle," or simply the "wild cattle," it came to be known as the "Texas longhorn" after the American Civil War.
No matter what you call them, full-grown Texas longhorns are intimidating animals. On neutered bulls, or "steers," the eponymous horns often measure 7 feet (2.1 meters) across from tip to tip. The Guinness World Record-holder is a steer named Pancho Via who currently resides in Alabama. From end to end, his super-sized horns are a jaw-dropping 10 feet, 7.4 inches (3.2 meters) across!
Changing Priorities
Such weaponry presents logistical challenges. Jean Norman, the owner of Our Heritage Guest Ranch in Sioux County, Nebraska is an experienced rancher. She and her family have kept longhorns for many years. Norman recalls that one heifer her late father purchased was quite the escape artist.
"Her horns arched and curled forward," she says in an email. Using these, the animal plucked staples from a number of fenceposts, "thus freeing the barbed wire." Occasionally, the offending cow would join forces with other longhorns to create sizable holes in the fencing.
Barbed wire fences almost doomed the breed. There was huge demand for western cattle after the Civil War. Back then, most ranchers west of the Mississippi allowed their animals to graze freely instead of fencing them in.
Self-reliant Texas longhorns didn't need much supervision and they could subsist on all kinds of wild plants. So the breed was a good fit for this "open range" approach to ranching. Furthermore, lengthy cattle drives over vast distances became a common sight by the 1850s. Longhorns had the physical stamina to survive the treks.
But the spread of railroads made prolonged cattle drives obsolete. At the same time, the popularization of barbed wire fences in the 1880s basically killed the open range era. Cowmen were now expected to confine their animals with sturdy fencing.
Texas longhorns had a reputation for being standoffish. It was an attitude that served them well out in the wilderness, but enclosed ranches created a demand for more docile breeds — and fattier ones to boot. Another strike against the longhorn was a national panic about Texas Fever, a historic disease linked to cattle from the Lone Star State.
An American Comeback Story
At the dawn of the 20th century, it looked like the breed's days were numbered. And then a funny thing happened. With the longhorn population plummeting, romantics started to eulogize the animals. They were compared to the American bison, another victim of modernization and railroad expansion. Songs like "The Last Longhorn" used the beasts to remind listeners of a — supposedly — simpler time when the West was considered wild.
The University of Texas further mythologized the breed in 1906, when the school's athletic teams became officially known as "the Longhorns." The current live mascot goes by the name Bevo XV.
Twenty-one years later, U.S. Forest Service Rangers scored federal funding to raise a (real) longhorn herd in Oklahoma's Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. Combing the Southwest, the activists assembled 37 cattle. By 1929, the protected herd had expanded to 54 animals. Other herds were soon established in Texas state parks while private ranchers organized an ambitious breeding program.
By 1988, there were 125,000 registered Texas longhorns. Since then, this figure has risen to more than a quarter-million individuals. One thing that helped the breed stage its comeback was an emerging health food market in the 1980s, weight-conscious consumers developed an appetite for lean, low-fat meats — and longhorn beef fit the bill.
Even NASA got in on the action. Visit the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and you'll find some magnificent steers grazing within a few hundred yards of a Saturn V Rocket. Launched in 1996, the Johnson Space Center Longhorn Project has set aside 60 acres (24 hectares) of grassy land for dozens of the iconic cattle. Here, grade school students lend a hand in both raising top-quality animals and showcasing them at livestock conventions.
Rocketry and longhorns. It doesn't get more Texas than that.
President George W. Bush hosted two Texas longhorns at his presidential inaugurations: the University of Texas' live mascot Bevo XIII at his first inauguration and Bevo XIV at his second.
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Donald E. Worcester, &ldquoLonghorn Cattle,&rdquo Handbook of Texas Online, accessed June 30, 2021, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/longhorn-cattle.
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History of the Texas Longhorns Part Eight: Dodge City Citizens 'Welcomed' Longhorn Drives
As the railroads and quarantine laws steadily moved westward, they left in their wake towns that the Texas Longhorns had built and established into prosperous entities. But as the cattle trade left, these towns settled down to quiet farming communities, usually glad to get rid of the 'hell-raising' cowboys that had made them prosperous. Along with the reasons for westward movement previously mentioned, the annihilation of the buffalo was a major cause for the opening of the limitless grasslands in the West.
When the white man had first seen the Great Plains, it appeared to be one big pasture of buffalo that ranged from South Texas to Canada. Sometimes, herds hundreds of miles across covered the earth like a slowly-moving brown quilt. In spring, the buffalo moved northward across Kansas, close-cropping the grass as they went. Most cattlemen knew that where the buffalo had ranged, the pastures would be spoiled for two years.
Everyone except the Indian seemed to want to wipe out the buffalo, for one reason or another: the soldiers wanted destruction of the herds as a means to keep the Indian on the reservations the railroads, deeply hurting from the depression of the seventies, were glad to haul meat, hides and bones to eastern markets freighters and merchants loved the business that came from buffalo hunting.
The Treaty of Medicine Lodge in 1867 gave the Indians the right to hunt buffalo in Kansas, but no white man could hunt south of the Arkansas River, which was then the southern boundary of Kansas. The Army never made any attempt to enforce the law, which highly upset the Indians.
In 1870, J. Wright Mooar asked the Commandant of Fort Dodge what might happen if he went hunting below the line. Officer Richard I. Dodge laughed and said, "Boys, if I were hunting buffalo, I would go where buffalo are."
Several efforts were made to save the buffalo, but they were turned down immediately. In 1872, the Kansas State Legislature passed an act to 'prevent the wanton destruction of buffalo,' but was countered with an executive pocket veto. Congress also tried in 1872 and 1874 to prevent 'useless slaughter of buffalo,' but were also vetoed. Meanwhile, the killing went on, setting the stage for the Texas Longhorn to take over the vast prairies being left vacated by the buffalo. During the heyday of the big hunts, one newspaper stated that a hunter from Dickinson County, Kansas, had killed as many as 658 buffalo in one winter. At seeing this, the editor of the Dodge City Times couldn't pass up the chance to prove the prowess of Ford County hunters: "Oh dear, what a mighty hunter! Ford County has twenty men who each have killed five times that many in one winter. The best record, however, is that of Tom Nixon, who killed 120 at one stand in forty minutes, and who, from the 15th of September to the 20th of October, killed 2,173 buffaloes. Come on with some more big hunters if you have any."
Finally, by 1877, Colonel Dodge wrote, "The buffalo is virtually exterminated. no legislation, however stringent or active, could now do anything for or against the trade of the 'buffalo products'." Colonel Dodge also believed that there was an Indian-dressed robe sent in for every five rawhides. In fact, during the years of 1872 to 1874, Dodge found a total of 1,215,000 buffalo killed by Indians compared to 3,158,730 killed by white men. In addition, because of fear that legislation would be passed to preserve the buffalo, the railroads conspired to keep secret the actual number of buffalo hides shipped over their lines. So with the buffalo exterminated and a majority of the warring Indian tribes 'loose-herded' on reservations, the Western United States was fair game for anyone wanting lush rangeland.
It is said that 'civilization follows the plow,' but if that is true in the western United States, then the plow followed the cowboys and the cowboys followed the Texas Longhorn steers. To understand the hardships endured by the Longhorns, along with their ability to endure just about anything, one must also understand the life of the American cowboy and the western cowtown. After all, it would be impossible, let alone unthinkable, to separate the cow from the cowboy in any historic narrative. Therefore, we will look at the hardships encountered by both the cattle and the men that drove them, along with the cowtown of all cowtowns----Dodge City.
Dodge City was different from the other cowtowns. It had been a boom town for buffalo hunters and bullwhackers for half a century. The men that followed the Santa Fe Trail were there. so were the soldiers from Fort Dodge. Everyone had a gun, in addition to excess of money and an abundance of liquor. The only thing on short supply in Dodge was women.
But from the first, the "citizens" of Dodge City were cattle-minded. As early as 1872, 19 year-old D.W. "Doc" Barton drove two thousand head of Longhorns to Dodge City. Because of Indian scares, he took a route through New Mexico and Colorado to the Arkansas River, following it downstream to Dodge City. At that time, there were no loading pens in Dodge, so he moved the herd on to Great Bend. It wasn't until 1875 that cattle started to be shipped out of Dodge on a regular basis. Then the town began working on her world-wide reputation as the Cowboy Capital. Many of the early citizens of Dodge were veterans of the other, earlier cowtowns: gamblers, gunfighters and prostitutes. Many of these were well-acquainted by the time they reached Dodge City, so they worked out a way of life that all could agree upon. As one historian said, "They knew how to raise hell and make it pay."
One summer day in 1876, a wagon train heading west came to Fort Dodge and camped on the prairie nearby. That evening, U.S. Army Surgeon, W.S. Tremaine and several other officers walked out to get the latest news from the travelers. They found the wagons deserted, with bullet holes and arrowheads stuck in their sides. Passing the wagons, they found the settlers kneeling with bowed heads, while their minister prayed: "Oh Lord, we pray Thee, protect us with Thy mighty hand. On our long journey, Thy Divine Providence has thus far kept us safe. We have survived cloudbursts, hailstorms, floods, strong gales, thirst and parching heat ----as well as raids of horse thieves and attacks by hostile Indians. But now, oh Lord, we face our gravest danger ---- Dodge City lies just ahead, and we must pass through it. Help us and save us, we beseech Thee. Amen."
This pretty well summed up the outsiders' view of Dodge City, also known as "The Deadwood of Kansas," "the rip-roaring burg of the West," "The Beautiful Bibulous Babylon of the Frontier," "Hell on the Plains." Dodge ---- a synonym for all that is wild, reckless and violent where was outfitted every expedition against Indians, horse thieves, outlaws where a saloon could be found for every fifty residents and where the only public buildings ever locked were the jail and the church.At first, Dodge had consisted of tents, small shacks and dugouts. Nearly everyone in town sold whiskey or opened a restaurant, but the town grew rapidly. A row of one-story frame buildings was built on both sides of the east-west railroad, forming the Plaza or Front Street. The nearest law was in Hays City, seventy-five miles away, with every imaginable danger between the two points.
Of course, not all of the residents or transients in Dodge were trigger-happy gunmen, gamblers, and "ladies of the evening." The majority of the citizens had come there to establish a new life and better themselves through farming, merchandising or ranching. But the public's imaginations was captured worldwide and forevermore by the American cowboys and the cattle they drove.
By the time Dodge City was established as a cowtown, the world's attention was on the massive cattle drives coming up from Texas and the Indian Territory. Most trail herds averaged twenty-five to thirty-five hundred and normally moved about 10 to 15 miles a day.
The Texas cattle didn't much resemble a 'modern' beef steer, which could never travel a thousand miles at that rate and gain weight at the same time anyway. Historian and author Stanley Vestal described the trailing Longhorns: "The Longhorn was wild, fierce, and sensitive, of mighty stamina, and muscled like a stag. There was nothing logy about him. He had narrow shoulders, a sharp backbone, tucked-up flanks, and a sway-back. There was more horn, hoof and bone to him, though he could get rolling fat. Most cattle get up slowly, hind end first, but the Longhorn ---- like the buffalo ---- seemed to spring up all at once, like a jack-in-the-box. He had a long tail, long legs, and was built to travel."
Buyers and owners reached Dodge well in advance of the herds. As soon as the brakeman on the slowing train shouted out "Dodge City," buyers from Wyoming to New York hurried across Front Street to either the Dodge House or the Alamo, where they immediately registered, then began talking about nothing but Longhorn steers, brands, cattle markets back East, cocktails and toddies.
The herds had started north as soon as the grass was high enough to feed them. Depending on their point of debarkation, they would reach Dodge City after 30 to 100 days on the trail.
For ten years, Dodge City was not only a cattle shipping point, but the greatest cattle market in the world. Many of the herds driven north to Dodge went straight on to Wyoming, Colorado, the Dakotas, Montana, and various Indian Agencies throughout the West.
Of 164 droves coming up the trail in 1880, 33 were herds of breeder cattle headed for the northern and western ranges. By the end of August 1880, 287,000 head of Longhorn had reached Dodge. In 1881, of 153,000 expected, over 100,000 had arrived by June 12. In the second half of that year, 100 railroad trains, made up of around 3,000 cars, each with a capacity of 20 head, carried 60,000 cattle out of Dodge.
In 1885, the last big year of the cattle trade, forecasts started to be made about the size of the Texas drive for the following season before the winter had even ended. Invitations were sent south to attract the cattlemen, and Dodge merchants got together to reduce prices on items in which the cowboys were interested.
While all of this was being advertised in Texas and the Indian Territory, Dodge went on it's annual cleanup campaign painting stores, replacing boards in the sidewalks (if they could be called that), and stocking up on supplies of every imaginable item. Cattle usually began to arrive around April and by May, a steady flow of Texas cattle and cowboys were blanketing the surrounding grasslands and the saloons (and even churches) of Dodge. By the middle of July, usually about 70 percent of the year's drive had been bought and sold.
But cattle would keep trickling in until mid-September, while cowboys who had been hired to drive "breeder herds" on to the north and west would be stopping back by to visit Dodge as late as October. So Dodge merchants found themselves catering to eastern buyers and speculators, northern ranchers, Texas cattlemen and drovers, and the ever-present shrill whistle of the locomotives about ten months out of the year. During the peak season, one thousand to two thousand cowboys would be found in and around Dodge. Many of these men would be busy branding, cutting out, and holding cattle for more fattening consequently, they might hang around Dodge for several months at a time.
Since these drovers received six month's to a year's pay as soon as the cattle were shipped out or sold, many of them worked off the boredom and hazards of the trail with liberal amounts of liquor, gambling, dancing with the saloon girls, or just plain having fun. The editor of the Dodge City Times, of course not knowing what these men had been through coming up the trail, wrote about the gun-toting Texas cowboy: "A gay and festive Texas boy, like all true sons of the Lone Star State, loves to fondle and practice with his revolver in the open air. It pleases his ear to hear the sound of this deadly weapon. Aside from the general pleasure he derives from shooting, the Texas boy makes shooting inside the corporate limits of any town or city a specialty. He loves to see the inhabitants rushing wildly around to 'see what all the shooting is all about,' and it tickles his heart to the very core to see the City Marshal coming towards him at a distance while he is safe and securely mounted."
"The program of the Texas lot then, is to come to town to bum around until he gets disgusted with himself, then to mount his pony and ride out through the main street, shooting his revolver at every jump. Not shooting to hurt anyone, but shooting in the air, just to raise a little excitement and let people know he is in town."
But the people of Dodge City seemed to put up with the minor hellraising by the cowboys, and even tried to protect them from gambling thieves, as is shown in this article from the Ford County Globe: "We believe that what is known as 'square games' are among the necessary belongings of any town that has the cattle trade. We don't believe there are a dozen people in Dodge who seriously object to this kind of gambling so long as this is a cattle town, but we appeal to our city officers 'to set down on' all showcase and other bare-faced robbing concerns. Keep them away from our town. They create more bad blood among both cattlemen and citizens than anything else. They are no good to any class of people in the community and they are even despised by gamblers themselves."
The common picture painted by television and Hollywood of the trail-drivin' cowboy has always been one of total independence, ruthlessness, rowdiness, drunkenness and extreme bravery, along with the willingness to shoot anybody down that got in his way or looked at him wrong.
A very few were that bad, but the majority of these men possessed qualities known primarily to mountain men, pioneers, and trailblazers. Their unflagging loyalty to their employer, to the point of dying to save the herd during Indian raids and floods, endeared him to all adventurous persons. Although the cowboy usually had little formal education, his "horse sense" more than made up for that. Like the tough Texas Longhorns he drove, he had found it most necessary to adapt to a wild and rough life, where danger could threaten his existence at any moment.
After being on the trail for months, then getting paid in Dodge City, the majority of these tough men (and the 15 to 18-year-olds which quickly became men) bought new duds, ammunition, possibly a new gun, and then got drunk until their money ran out or they had had enough of the high times of the wildest cowtown in the West. But these men, like the Longhorns, had adapted to the treacherous life of the Old West or they died trying.
James H. Cook, cowboy, plainsman, and author, described the role of the cowboy and plainsman in the West: "I desire to record one fact regarding those who made a success as good 'cowhands' or plainsmen or mountaineers, and who really aided, by their various activities, in paving the way for settlement in the West. Such men had to be known as men of deeds, men of action. No person, as far as I know, has ever accused Daniel Boone, Kit Carson, 'Bigfoot' Wallace, Jim Bridger, or others of their type whose names will remain indelible in the history of the West, of being either loafers, dance-hall artists, or desperadoes.
"The majority of the cowboys of the West were not a drunken, gambling lot of toughs. It required riders with clear heads, brave hearts, and strong bodies to do the work which was required in handling either the great trail herds or the cattle on the ranges. A drunken man riding one of those great herds of wild cattle was a sight I never witnessed. One could as well imagine a man being allowed to smoke cigarettes in a powder factory. A large percentage of the men who lived the life of the open chose and followed that life because they loved it."
One cowboy named Burt Taylor described one instance in which alcohol and cattle didn't mix: "There was another ferry that ferried across the Arkansas River a short ways back from the mouth before it emptied into the Virdigris. This ferry was run by Mrs. Lake Brewer, a Cherokee woman. After crossing the river, the trail from the ferry to Kansas was known as the Baxter Springs Road. Mrs. Brewer would at times, when the river was high, ferry cattle across the river on the ferry boat."
"One winter after I'd taken over the ferry, the river froze over real thick it had begun to thaw and the ice was slipping. Jeff and Floyd Nevins went to Ft. Gibson and bought a bunch of jake came back to the ferry pretty drunk. They got about a third of the way across the river, but because of the noise they were making, all the cattle got in one end of the ferry. Once there, the end the cattle were on, sank, throwing the other end away up out of the water. All the cattle drowned except one brindle steer."
"There was one man on the ferry that could not swim, the others had to hold him on the upper end of the ferry to keep him from jumping into the river as he got scared and lost his common judgment. All the men aboard got soaking wet a skiff was taken out to get Jeff and Floyd, on the way back to the bank, the skiff run upon a large snag and sank."
This same cowboy told of his experiences of swimming cattle across rivers, and the problems involved. "When the river was low, it wasn't much problem getting the Longhorns across, but when the water was high, it was a mightily hard job. The way we handled them when the water was high was, we would start two or three of them into the water, and after they got to where they had to swim, we would pull up beside and get on their backs. We had a stick, and when the steers tried to turn back or go in the wrong direction, we would beat them on the side of the head and make them go straight, after we got the first few started, the others were easy to make follow. A lot of times when the water was real high, it would take us three weeks and longer to get them across. Quite often, we would start a large bunch across the river, lose control of them and they would come out anywhere from one to two miles down the river on the same side we started from. We would ride the steers' backs, jumping from one to the other, we had to leave the steer we would be riding before he got to the bank for if we rode them out onto the bank they would turn and charge us. They were surely the old long horned Texas steers."
While researching this series of articles I drove thousands of miles to sift through court records and newspaper articles, and talked with people who let me glance through crumbling pages of the diaries of their cattle-driving forefathers in search of interesting materials which told of the ways of life--and death-- of the frontier cattlemen and their Texas Longhorns. These stories could be summed up into the dry "high school history book" style, but I would much rather use them in their entirety so as to preserve the colorful narrative that expressed the spirit, stamina, and the close-knit relationships between cowboy and cow.
I would once again like to quote cattleman and author James H. Cook, whose narratives captured the spirit and dangers encountered by the drovers: "I think I can understand how men whose spirits are fired by patriotism in time of war will stand all sorts of privations and hardships, as well as the most intense suffering, such as was endured at Valley Forge, and at times during the War of the Rebellion but what spirit fired and sustained the boys who drove the trail herds during the times of which I write is more than I can explain. I remember hardly an instance, and I think there were actually very few if any, in which men proved themselves to be quitters. To hold onto the stock seemed to be the first consideration with all engaged in the work."
"There are rough spots in the lives of all who have lived in the open, whether the life be that of a soldier, sailor, or plainsman but I think the wild and woolly 'cow waddie' received about as many rough knocks as anybody living on the sunset side of the Mississippi."
"During the storms, the cattle and horses would stampede, and to stay with them, we had to ride as fast as a horse could run. Sometimes it would be so dark that a rider could not see his horse's head. Then a flash of lightning would come, and we could see the cattle tearing madly along and locate their position. The next moment one would again be blinded by the flash. Many were the hard falls the boys had to take when a horse went down while running after stampeded stock on those dark and stormy nights."
"Many were the poor old 'leather-breeches' who came dragging themselves into camp the morning after a bad night, either with broken bones or carrying their saddle on their backs, because their pony had fallen and broken his neck or a leg. And I know personally a few of the boys who were crushed to death and had to be left by the side of the trail to wait for the call of the great trumpeter, Gabriel, because of those terrible runs at night."
The Texas cowboy had to endure hardships greater than any other type of frontiersman. Hunters, trappers, and soldiers could usually find some shelter from storms, tornadoes, and Indians, but the drover had to brave the elements in order to stay with the herd. The real cowboy would stay with the herd come 'hell or high water' because he had to. Many unmarked graves lie along the great trails because drovers froze to death in the saddle, were trampled by cattle stampedes or attacked from ambush by Indians. Others met their demise in the cowtowns by gamblers very efficient with their six-shooters, who oftentimes just for sport, prodded the proud cowpuncher into a fight he had no chance of winning.
Author's note: In the last part, I mentioned some investigation being done into the possibility of 'long-horned cattle' existing on the North American continent as early as the fifth century A.D.. Scientists are constantly searching for archaeological evidence to find out what type of life was here first. Some of the newest stories concern a Chinese legend found in the Llang Dynasty, telling of a Buddhist monk who discovered a land he called Fusang, about 13,000 miles east of China. Some persons researching this legend say this would have put the ancient explorers somewhere near southern California. Similarities between the empire noted by the monk and the highly developed civilizations of the fifth century Yucatan's in present Mexico do exist, but according to Professor of Geology, Stephen C. Jett, of the University of California at Davis, there is no substantial evidence to indicate these 'long-horned cattle' were indeed cattle. The animals might have been found to substantiate any claim that true cattle existed in America until Columbus brought that first small group on his second voyage in 1493 -- and those were Spanish cattle. |
LONGHORN CATTLE
Longhorn are a breed of cattle descended from cows and bulls left by early Spanish settlers in the American Southwest. They are named for their long horns, which span about four feet (over one meter). By the end of the American Civil War (1861 – 1865) these cattle had multiplied and great numbers of them roamed freely across the open range of the West. Americans found the beef of longhorns stringy and tough. But ranchers in Texas bred the longhorns with other cattle breeds such as Hereford and Angus to produce better quality meat. As beef was in demand in the eastern United States, shrewd businessmen capitalized on the business opportunity, buying cattle for three to five dollars a head and selling them in eastern and northern markets for as much as $25 to $60 a head. Ranchers hired cowboys to round up, sort out, and drive their herds to railheads in places like Abilene and Dodge City, Kansas, which became famous as "cow towns" (raucous boom towns where saloons and brothels proliferated.) After the long trail drive, the cattle were loaded onto rail cars and shipped live to local butchers who slaughtered the livestock and prepared the beef. For 20 years the plentiful longhorn cattle sustained a booming livestock industry in the West: at least six million Texas longhorns were driven across Oklahoma to the cow towns of Kansas. However, by 1890 the complexion of the industry changed. Farmers and ranchers in the West used a new material, barbed wire, to fence in their lands, closing the open range. Railroads were extended, bringing an end to the long, hard, and much glorified cattle drives the role of the cowboy changed, making him little more than a hired hand. Big business took over the industry. Among the entrepreneurs who capitalized on beef's place in the American diet was New England-born Gustavus Swift (1839 – 1903), who in 1877 began a large-scale slaughterhouse operation in Chicago, shipping ready-packed meat via refrigerated railcars to markets in the East.
Sien ook: Barbed Wire, Cattle Drives, Cowboy, Cow Towns, Chisholm Trail, Open Range, Prairie
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Longhorn Cattle - History
TEXAS LONGHORN BLOODLINE LEGACIES
From Near Extinction To Distinction
By the turn of the 19th century demand for the Texas Longhorn beef began to fade. It took less than 40 years of fencing,plows and demand for the fat English breeds to drive the Texas longhorn closer to extinction than the buffalo. Six cattle families along with the United States Government are responsible for preserving the Texas Longhorn as a breed.
The Butler family: Named for Milby Butler, a pioneer cattleman who began raising Texas Longhorns in the early 1900's. His cattle trace back to the wild cattle of east Texas and the Gulf Coast. Most of Milby's cattle were butchered after he died in 1971 but the best were saved by several selective breeders. The Butler line is known for exceptional horn growth. Perhaps the most famous Butler cattle were Bevo and Beauty. This sire and dam produced the bull, Classic among others.
The WR (Wildlife Refuge) bloodline: The WR line of Longhorns is a result of selective breeding that began with the acquisition of breeding stock in 1927. That year, the Wichita Refuge searched for Longhorn cattle to preserve the breed from extinction. Refuge employees(Earl Drummond,Heck Schrader, Joe Bill Lee and Elmer Parker Jr.) viewed thousands of cattle and finally located and acquired 20 cows and 3 bulls that were of the Longhorn type. Several bulls and cows were added to the original herd through the years. The success of the breeding program has made the WR line one of the most popular today.
The Peeler family: Named for Graves Peeler. Mr.Peeler raised longhorns, a tradition established by his father starting in 1931, extensively after losing many heads of English-bred cattle in a blizzard. One of the most well known of the Peeler cattle was YO Carmela I, the first cow registered by the TLBAA.
The Marks family: Named for Emil H. Marks. By 1920, Mr.Marks noticed that longhorns were disappearing from the marketplace. He began holding back some of his best animals just to keep the breed alive. The Marks line was among the oldest of the Texas Longhorn bloodlines.
The Wright family: Named for M.P. Wright. The Wright line originated in South Texas where the family had a ranching and slaughter business. When ranchers would bring in longhorns for sale, Wright would select the better longhorns for breeding stock. His first 100 animals were acquired in this way. In 1965, the Wright herd consisted of 222 registered Texas Longhorns.
The Yates family: Named for Cap Yates. Mr. Yates interest in Longhorns resulted in a bloodline known for purity toward the original "old type" Longhorn. Yates began developing an eye for cattle while working as a ranch foreman in 1910, and bought many cattle from Mexico after World WarI. At his ranches in south and west Texas, the only breed of cattle that could survive on the desolate, harsh land were Longhorns.
The Phillips family: Named for Jack Phillips. Jack followed his father and grandfather in raising Texas Longhorn cattle. Phillips had raised Longhorns for 30 years before the TLBAA was formed in 1964. Phillips always looked for long legs, long bodies, slender heads, long bushy tails and good horns. He used the selection rules of conformation first, followed by horns and color traits. Texas Ranger JP is perhaps the best known animals from this bloodline. Known as the sire for size.
OTHER IMPORTANT TEXAS LONGHORN BLOODLINES:
Scott - Developed by Walter B. Scott of Goliad Texas. A blend of Peeler and Marks bloodlines.
YO - Charles Schreiner III developed a blend of "WR" and Peeler along with the bull "BOLD RULER".
SPEAR-E - Elvin Blevins of Wynnewood, Oklahoma started this bloodline in 1952. Primarily "WR" with "YATES" influence.
SHAHAN - James T."Happy" Shahan line of Texas Longhorns is the result of selective inbreeding from the Marks, Butler, Peeler and Stanger bloodlines.
WOODS - Grady Woods, great-great grandson of Joshua Westbrook homestead in Newton County east Texas. These cattle are descendents of stock brought to Santo Domingo and Mexico by the Spaniards.
BLR - Bright Longhorn Ranch. Arthur Bright of Le Grand California. "WR" based heard on the west coast starting in 1962.
Ox Yoke T - This line of cattle was developed by Ken Humphrey of Okreek, South Dakota in 1950, utilizing the Fort Niobrara Refuge cattle for 50% with 25% "Yates" and 25% "WR".